Pizza beer . . . no, really

Posted in Beer & Food, Beers at   

Pizza and beer, a natural, yes?

But pizza beer? For the next few weeks, Walter Payton’s Roundhouse will be offering pizza beer on its menu — flavored with tomato, basil, oregano and garlic.

Homebrewer Tom Seefurth of St. Charles earned the right to have his beer made at the suburban Chicago brewery based on its success in homebrew competitions. Walter Payton’s brewmaster Mike Rybinski annually scales up a prize-winning homebrew batch to serve at the restaurant.

“Most people have pizza and beer; now you can have pizza in beer,” Rybinski said. “It’ll go great with pastas and all sorts of stuff.”

“The French are always famous for pairing their wine with food, and I wanted to create a beer that’s good with food,” Seefurth said. “And what’s America’s favorite food? Pizza.”

17 Replies to “Pizza beer . . . no, really”

  2. How rank can you get?!? Pizza beer and even pizza with beer. C’mon everyone knows that you ought to have a wee dram of the finest water of life (whisky) with your beer. Food?!?

  4. Campton man brews up fame
    By KARTIKAY MEHROTRA – kmehrotra@kcchronicle.com
    Comments (No comments posted.)
    CAMPTON TOWNSHIP – Tom Seefurth says his pizza-flavored concoctions will have him rolling in the dough in no time.

    The real-estate agent turned brewmaster says the local publicity that he received after putting his Mamma Mia Pizza Beer on tap at Walter Payton’s Roundhouse in Aurora has both beer drinkers and newsmakers nationwide, and even internationally, looking for a swig of his most recent brew.

    “I can’t even describe what the feeling is,” Seefurth said, citing his emotions after hearing that “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno made reference to his pizza beer during a recent show.

    “Close to 20 radio stations across the nation have called, Albany called this morning. … [WLUP DJ Jonathon] Brandmeier, he was a naysayer.”

    Seefurth said his beer would be talked about between 6 and 8 a.m. today on Brandmeier’s show.

    Seefurth’s pizza beer is a combination of tomatoes, garlic, yeast and herbs, which, when purified, strained and fermented, comes out a pale orange and tastes, as advertised, like pizza.

    Despite a few reports on one of about a half-dozen Web logs, the beer is not a chunky stew of tomatoes and toppings, although some of his key ingredients are in actual pizza.

    “This is better than anything you’ll put in your mouth with any kind of Italian dish,” Seefurth said during the beer’s recent unveiling at Walter Payton’s restaurant on Route 31.

    Seefurth even has Canadian talk shows calling in to find out how he came up with the pizza beer.

    “They said, ‘Who knows, Mr. Seefurth, maybe it’ll be the first beer that Canadians actually like,’” Seefurth said.

    While pizza beer might take pizza parlors around the country by storm this summer, Seefurth’s entrepreneurship isn’t stopping there. Just last week, Seefurth signed a contract with an area cheese manufacturer for pizza-beer cheese.

    “We went up and packaged our own half-pound packages of Wisconsin cheese, we’re going to make this and sell it to the brew pubs,” Seefurth said.

    Seefurth has turned his beer making business into a family affair, using has wife, Athena, as his quality control technician and his 14-year-old daughter Suzanne’s drawing skills to create emblems for the beer and cheese.

    Seefurth’s next ambition to gain some publicity? Tossing a pizza into a brew-pot from a New York City rooftop.

  5. I made a Pizza Beer years ago, not very tastey, but a great marinade, just ask Jeffery at Brewers Connection in Tempe, AZ

  7. i take pizza with beer but what pizza beer i really don’t no about it. i want to try this would you tell me where i ordered this.

  8. Hopefully will be available shortly. We applied for our Federal Permit last week. We are officially in business as “Pizza Beer Company” Look for Chef Tom & Athena (aka Mamma) on the package. Accept no rip offs or substitutes!
    we have a web site pizzabeer.net stay tuned, drop us an email & we will keep you informed.

  9. Not a personal slam on this brew, but this beer is all gimmick and hype. As if the brewer were using some sort of pop advertising techniques to make this brew into a pop phenomena. Sure it tastes like pizza, but I question why you’d ever want a beer to taste like pizza? I read the comment on the beer about pairing up foods. No one pairs up drink w/ a dish if they taste the same. That would be like having a cheeseburger along with liquid cheeseburger beer. I tried this at Payton’s Roundhouse, and it was just too strange. I don’t believe anyone there was too crazy about it either. It’s more of a beer that people would try once, to say they tried it. Best of luck to the business man / brewer with future brews. It was a successful beer as far as execution. Maybe try fusing pairings of flavors that doesn’t taste like greasy comfort food.

  10. I just tried this beer…and i honestly think it’s the worst thing that i’ve ever tasted. honestly. i had 3 sips, spit out the last one, and dumped the glass.
    nice gimmick, unortunately, the beer is awful.

  11. I bought one of these beers a month or two ago on a whim. I was going to a party and decided this would be fun to bring. We poured it into 10 plastic cups and all drank. This beer literally tastes like if you drank a 6 pack of budweiser and ate half a Tombstone pizza and then threw up. That aftertaste in your mouth would taste very similar to this beer.

    Kudos to the brewer for trying something different, but he should’ve kept it in his garage.

  13. Hey I just wanted to try and share the wealth!

    If you like drinking in the state of Texas, check it out!

    http://www.texasbeermaps.com

    Has every single drinking establishment in the entire state, including a section on how to brew your own beer!

    Mike

  14. This stuff was just bad. They had it at woodmans and it was $1.99 for one bottle and i wasted my money. It is so thick like tar. and the spices are overpowering…. just mix some thick pasta sauce in with some cheep beer and it is the same taste. Save yourself the money!

  15. Was able to try a glass today in Southern California. ( Not available here yet.. soon though!) Was actually very, very good. Not overpowering, just a nice mild brew that went down well. Slight hints to the herbs used but what do you think oats, barley and grains are. Those that have slammed it I doubt have even tried it. Probably just unhappy brewmasters with no creativity. Not a beer you’ll down 6 in a row, but a great companion to a wood fired pizza. Kuddos!

  16. Bryan,

    If you read this, the beer is available at Portino’s on Valley Center Rd in Valley Center, CA.

    Frank McCarron just took a 1st place in the Western Division, International Pizza Competition, used the beer in the crust.

    I agree, I’ve seen “Thick as Tar”, “Red like Blood” comments. I don’t think these folks really tried it. It’s a very low viscosity beer with an og of 1.046 and a TG of 1.010 and all malts used were basic, nothing that would make it red. Even the 1st home brew and the Payton brew where we tried to “dye” it red with beets in the mix did not get any kind of red.

    Go git yerself some!

  17. They have this beer available at the Melody Inn in Indianapolis. I bought it for the sheer novelty of pizza flavor in a beer and wasn’t expecting anything spectacular.

    Here’s my take: First sip didn’t seem like the beer was flavored -it was quite an interesting sensation instead – it seemed like I was drinking a normal beer in a pizzarea – the pizza taste transcended into a pizza smell with normal beer taste. I was impressed and had a few friends try it, touting, “you gotta have some of this!”. But the novelty did wear off near the end of the bottle (it’s a large bottle – 16 ounces or so) and in the end it tasted like someone dropped a pizza flavored Combo snack cracker in my beer.

    It’s worth a try, I may have another someday but it’s not one of those you want more than one of in an evening. Do try it – it IS a conversation piece.

Comments are closed.